The night had not yet ended, but it felt older than time itself.
Ash hung heavy in the air, coating the cracked marble and broken earth with a dull, ashen sheen. The smell of scorched soil lingered, sharp and metallic. The frost that had once covered the graves was gone, replaced by smoke and ruin. Alden stood at the center of it all—torn, bleeding, wand trembling in his grip, the remains of Daphne's shattered ring still glittering faintly at his feet.
Across the clearing, Voldemort moved through the haze with unhurried grace, his wand raised, his expression almost serene. The firelight caught on his pale face and hollowed it further, making his eyes—those impossible, burning slits—seem to float independent of flesh.
"So this is the boy Hogwarts whispers about," Voldemort said softly, his voice carrying easily through the wreckage. "The next Dark Lord. The prodigy who humiliated my borrowed face." He tilted his head, studying Alden like a particularly curious specimen. "You look very small beneath your legends."
Alden steadied his breath, fingers slick with his own blood. "And you," he rasped, "look very human beneath yours."
The faintest twitch curved Voldemort's mouth. "Humanity is a disease one sheds. You've yet to outgrow it."
He lifted his wand in a single elegant motion.
Alden barely saw the movement before the world screamed. A wave of invisible force tore through the ground, ripping open a gash of stone and earth that lunged toward him. He dove sideways, feeling the air itself split past his shoulder, heat and pressure slamming into him. He rolled behind a crumbling gravestone, the impact knocking the air from his lungs.
Chunks of granite and dirt rained around him. He coughed, his vision streaked with red light from the spells flashing across the smoke.
"Protego!" he hissed, raising his wand just in time. The next curse—green and jagged—smashed against his shield, scattering sparks like shrapnel. His arm went numb from the recoil. He staggered back, breathing hard.
Voldemort's silhouette emerged through the haze, each step deliberate. "You hide behind walls. How poetic for one who claims there's no such thing as good or evil."
Alden forced his legs to move, circling, never still. "There isn't," he said between ragged breaths. "There's only one purpose."
"Purpose?" Voldemort's eyes flared, cold amusement slicing through his tone. "Then your purpose seems to be dying on your knees."
He slashed his wand down. "Lacero."
The spell cut through the air like a whip; Alden barely ducked in time, the tip of it grazing his cheek and splitting it open. He hissed, pressing a hand to the wound as warm blood dripped between his fingers. Before he could recover, another curse followed, colliding with a nearby monument and blasting it apart. Shards of marble cut across his back, biting deep.
Alden turned his wand upward, firing blind. "Sectis Nox Magna!"
Dark energy rippled through the air like a blade. Voldemort flicked his wrist, and it deflected effortlessly, splitting into two arcs that curved back toward Alden. He swore and threw himself flat; the curses collided behind him in a deafening crack, the explosion throwing up a wall of dust and heat.
Harry's muffled voice rose from the base of the Riddle statue. "Alden! The Cup—take the Cup! Go!"
Alden's head snapped toward the faint gleam of the Triwizard Cup, half-buried in rubble. His chest heaved. He could make it—if he ran now, if he ignored the pain clawing up his ribs. He could reach it, grab Harry on the way, maybe—
A flash of green light scorched the ground at his feet. The thought evaporated. Voldemort's laughter rolled through the dark.
"Always looking for the exit," he purred. "How very Gryffindor of you."
Alden spat blood into the dirt. "I told him we'd go home together."
The words came out quietly, almost to himself, but Voldemort's hearing was sharp. "Ah. Loyalty." His tone was mocking, but his smile was genuine. "A quaint relic of weaker men."
Another spell arced toward Alden—Bombarda Maxima—and he barely managed to raise a half-formed shield. The ground erupted. A pulse of energy flung him backward into a tomb, his shoulder exploding with pain. His wand clattered across the dirt, but he lunged, fingers closing around it before he even stopped rolling.
He rose, shaking, vision swimming. He was running on instinct now, every thought carved by desperation. Spells fired from both sides in rapid succession—"Expelliarmus!""Reducto!""Umbra Ferrum!"
Shadow-forged blades spiraled out from Alden's wand, slicing through the smoke toward Voldemort, but he swatted them aside, each one dissolving before reaching him. With every deflection, Voldemort's amusement grew.
"So much knowledge," he said, circling him like a predator. "So much study, so many clever theories. And yet, when it matters…" His wand drew another pattern in the air, slower this time, deliberate. "You bleed just like the rest."
The spell struck before Alden could raise his wand. It wasn't a curse—something subtler, a pulse of warped energy that twisted the air around him. The ground tilted. His legs buckled as gravity seemed to change direction, pulling him sideways against the broken marble. He pushed off, struggling to steady himself as his vision warped, the horizon lurching unnaturally.
"Do you feel it?" Voldemort asked. "That's what mastery is. Not power. Control."
Alden gritted his teeth, forcing his wand up. His magic flared in defiance, shattering the distortion long enough to breathe. "Control isn't domination," he rasped. "It's understanding."
Voldemort smiled thinly. "You sound like Dumbledore."
"Maybe that's why you fear me."
The Dark Lord's expression hardened. The temperature in the air seemed to change—not heat, not cold, but pressure, like the sky itself had drawn breath. Voldemort's voice dropped to a whisper that crawled along Alden's skin.
"Fear you?" he said. "No, boy. I recognize you."
The next curse came without warning—a jagged red burst that detonated at Alden's feet. The explosion threw him backward into the open air, over cracked tombs and dirt, his body slamming into the base of another monument. His breath tore from his lungs, the impact leaving him half-blind from pain.
He blinked, dazed, searching through the haze—and caught sight of Harry again, still bound, still struggling.
He wanted to scream. At Voldemort, at the world, at himself. He'd told Harry they'd go home together. He couldn't break that promise. Not here. Not now.
He pushed himself upright, legs shaking, blood dripping down his temple. Every breath burned. Voldemort was still walking toward him, slow and deliberate, as if savoring the distance closing between predator and prey.
"You've proven one thing," Voldemort said, voice low, dangerous. "Intent means nothing when you lack the will to see it through."
Alden met his gaze. "Then you've taught me the last lesson I needed."
And despite the exhaustion, despite the pain, his grip on the wand steadied. His eyes sharpened.
Because now he understood.
Intent meant nothing—unless you were willing to become the consequence.
He was running on instinct now. Not strategy, not precision—just the raw pulse of survival that roared through his blood and burned behind his ribs.
The graveyard was a warzone. Curses carved the air like meteors, each one slamming into the ground with bone-breaking force. Marble angels shattered. Headstones splintered. The sky itself seemed to crack, black clouds swirling above, reflecting green and crimson flashes of light like a storm caught between worlds.
Alden vaulted over a toppled crypt, boots slipping on moss-slick stone as another curse detonated behind him. The blast wave threw him forward, dirt and bone shards pelting his back. He rolled, hit the ground hard, and came up half-crouched, wand raised purely by muscle memory.
A sliver of lightning arced past his face—too close. It seared the air beside him, burning a line across his cheek. His vision blurred with the mix of blood and grit that ran into his eyes.
He heard laughter. High, bright, delighted.
"Run, little heir!" Voldemort's voice carried through the smoke, rich with amusement. "Run as your ancestors did when their empires burned!"
Alden didn't answer. He couldn't. His breath tore through his throat like glass. His ribs ached from where the last curse had grazed him. His hand shook every time he raised his wand.
He was dying. Not quickly, not theatrically. Just… gradually. Each spell chipped away at something inside him—his calm, his focus, his restraint.
Another spell screamed through the night. He didn't even recognize the incantation—only the sound it made when it hit a headstone and split it in half. The air howled with energy. He ducked behind what remained of the Riddle family tomb, chest heaving.
You're not going to make it. The thought came quietly, like a whisper from deep within. It wasn't panic—it was certainty. His vision pulsed at the edges. His wand arm ached from channeling too much raw power too fast.
Blood dripped from his temple, down into his eye, burning. He wiped at it uselessly with the back of his hand, smearing red and dirt across his cheek. His robes were torn, one sleeve in tatters. The world swam every time he blinked.
He tried to cast another shield, but his voice broke halfway through the word. The spell sputtered, weak and translucent. He pressed his hand to his side, felt the wet warmth of blood soaking through fabric.
This was it.
Voldemort's voice rose again—mocking, gleeful. "You disappoint me, Dreyse! Hogwarts called you the next Dark Lord, did they not? A prodigy! A serpent born from shadow!" He fired another curse, a slash of silver light that carved through the air. "Then show me!"
Alden barely twisted aside in time. The spell caught the edge of his shoulder, ripping cloth and skin alike. Pain tore through him, white-hot. He stumbled, clutching at the wound.
He couldn't hear Harry's voice anymore—only the pounding of blood in his ears. His body screamed for him to run, but his mind wouldn't let him.
He wasn't going to die crawling.
He slid behind another grave, crouching low, wand trembling in his grip. The ground stank of sulfur and iron. Is this what power looks like? He thought. Is this what they all feared?
Every word anyone had ever said about him came flooding back—the whispers, the stares, the way professors paused mid-sentence when he entered a room. The next Grindelwald.The snake in Slytherin's shadow.Dreyse blood's gone dark again.
He'd spent years denying it. Pretending that his control made him different. That intellect and purpose were enough to separate him from monsters. But now—bleeding in a graveyard, hunted by the greatest dark wizard alive—he couldn't see the difference anymore.
The intent didn't matter. Only the outcome did.
He felt it—the cold clarity sliding into his mind like a knife. A brutal understanding. There were no sides. No purity. No light or dark. There was only survival, and the will to achieve it.
If that meant becoming what they feared—then so be it.
He thought of Theo, of the way his friend's laughter always came a little too late, as if waiting for permission to exist. Of Daphne, her steady voice cutting through the noise, the first person who'd ever made him promise something.
Would they still look at him the same way if they saw this? The boy, clawing through the dirt, half-blind, blood dripping down his face, ready to embrace the very thing the world feared him for?
Probably not.
But for the first time, that didn't matter.
He pushed himself upright, his body shaking with exhaustion. Smoke and moonlight swirled around him. His fingers brushed against his hand—his ring finger, bare now. The metal that had once rested there was gone, shattered when it had saved his life. Only the faint indentation of where it had been remained.
He stared at it for a long moment, breathing hard, then whispered under his breath," I promised you I'd come back."
He closed his fist. The blood that ran from his knuckles dripped into the dirt."I intend to keep that promise."
Voldemort's laughter echoed again, closer now. Alden lifted his head, eyes shadowed but clear, something feral rising behind them. The hesitation, the restraint, the need to prove—gone.
He stepped out from behind the tomb. The night wind caught his torn cloak, whipping it aside. His wand rose, steady despite the blood running down his arm.
Across the field, Voldemort stopped, amused—and perhaps, for the first time, faintly curious.
Alden's voice came low, quiet, but it carried through the wreckage like a verdict: "You wanted to see the monster they whisper about?"
The wand in his hand pulsed with faint light."Then look."
And when the next curse came—he didn't run.
The world cracked open.
Voldemort moved like a conductor before an orchestra of ruin. His wand rose, his free hand glowed with ghostlight, and the air itself bent to him. The mist twisted, trembling as if it knew its master's hand had returned.
"Magic isn't power, boy," he said, his voice a knife against silk. "It's a command."
And he commanded.
Four words—soft, precise, ancient. The kind of magic that rewrote air and bone alike.
"Serpens Somnia."The ground split. From beneath the graves, translucent serpents burst forth—creatures born of nightmare and smoke, their fangs glittering with spectral venom. They lunged through the air with shrieks that weren't animal but human, the remnants of dreams turned predatory.
"Mors Caelum."The air collapsed. Alden's lungs crushed inward; his breath vanished as if the world had stolen it. He fell to one knee, clawing at his throat, forcing magic into his chest just to breathe.
Voldemort's wand danced. "Venenum Flammae."Flame coiled into being—not red, not orange, but the color of molten glass, burning blue-white. The serpents burst apart, their vapor feeding the fire until it circled Alden in a spinning ring.
And then came the final layer. "Fulmen Orbis."Lightning answered the call. A circle of violet arcs fell from the sky, converging around the graveyard, sealing them both inside a cage of living electricity.
The combined magic screamed. Earth shuddered, tombstones shattered, trees ignited and died in the same breath. Every color warped into too-bright terror.
Voldemort's laughter rose above the storm."This is why the world feared me! Because I never stopped learning!"
Alden staggered upright, blood blinding one eye, the other burning with defiance. His wand shook in his hand, every nerve screaming. He fired on instinct—"Sectis Nox Magna!"
The blade of shadow tore through the firestorm—but Voldemort flicked his wand once, and it unraveled midair.
"Umbra Ferrum!" Alden countered. Shadows hardened into spinning blades, slicing forward. Voldemort raised his hand—no wand—and they froze, then disintegrated into ash.
Alden's voice was raw. "Bombarda!"
The explosion hit between them, blowing a crater in the earth. Both were thrown backward, but Voldemort landed lightly, like gravity didn't apply to him.
Alden struggled to his feet, coughing blood. "Expelliarmus!" he shouted, desperate.
Voldemort caught the beam between his fingers and twisted it until it shattered like glass."So much effort," he hissed, eyes gleaming. "So much talent. And for what? To prove morality to the dead?"
Alden's knees nearly buckled as his shield faltered under another impact. The force cracked the stone behind him, sending fissures through the earth beneath his boots. His arm felt dead. His wand hand trembled violently. His body screamed for surrender—but something colder, deeper, refused.
Voldemort advanced, elegant and cruel, the light of his wand painting his face like marble over blood. "You can't win, boy. You can only yield."
Alden spat red into the dirt, chest rising and falling in ragged bursts. He didn't answer.
Because he wasn't thinking anymore.
He let go.
The last thread of restraint snapped, and something ancient and instinctive stirred in his veins—the thing he'd spent years denying. The thing every whisper in the castle had called him.
The air went still. The lightning cage dimmed, as though the storm itself were holding its breath.
Alden lifted his wand—not as a student, not as a scholar, but as a creature that had finally stopped pretending to be human.
"Umbra Excoriatus."
The graveyard inverted. Light peeled away from matter, leaving strips of darkness hanging in the air. Every active spell within reach—flame, lightning, curse—was flayed apart, dissolving into ribbons of black light that disintegrated midair. Even Voldemort's aura wavered, the twin glows around his hands flickering for the first time.
Alden's voice, hoarse and low, cut through the silence."You taught me control," he said. "But I learned rejection."
He moved faster now, each motion fueled by something primal. His wand slashed down."Noctis Ensis!"
A blade of shadowfire burst to life in his hand—pure night condensed into an edge. Every swing left a trail of pale-green light that hung in the air like memory, cutting through the debris, the mist, the cage.
Voldemort's eyes narrowed, amused and intrigued all at once. "Grindelwald's craft," he murmured. "And yet… not his hand."
Alden didn't respond. He lunged, swinging—Voldemort caught the edge mid-strike with invisible force. Sparks of darkness and lightning collided, spitting green and violet energy into the sky.
Voldemort pushed. Alden pushed back. For a heartbeat, they were locked—master and inheritor, destruction against defiance.
Then Alden whispered something Voldemort didn't catch. The ground beneath them cracked open.
"Vita Reversum."
The world died. Every blade of grass turned grey, crumbling into dust. The vines and roots recoiled, petrified. Even the smoke slowed, heavy as oil. The air filled with frost, but this time it wasn't cold—it was emptiness, the absence of life itself.
Voldemort's smile faltered. Just for a second.
And then Alden's body convulsed—the magic feeding on him as much as through him. He fell to one knee, coughing blood.
Voldemort's expression softened into delight. "There it is," he said, quietly thrilled. "The cost. Did you think greatness came free?"
He lifted his wand. "Confringo!"
The curse struck like a hammer. Alden's shield shattered. He hit the ground hard, rolled through dirt and shattered stone. When he came up again, his left hand was bleeding, skin torn. He didn't care. He dragged his palm through the air.
"Sanguine Aegis."
The blood droplets hovered, then hardened into a lattice of red sigils, forming a shield that pulsed faintly. The next curse hit it—and died. The force soaked into the barrier instead, feeding it, strengthening it.
Alden rose behind it, panting, one eye swollen, the other gleaming with something cold and inhuman. His hair, matted with blood, clung to his face.
Voldemort regarded him like one might admire a rare, venomous flower. "You are beautiful in your failure," he said. "Almost worth keeping alive."
"Try." Alden's voice was quiet, but it cut through the wind like steel.
He raised his wand again. Shadows bloomed from his back—tendrils of pale green-grey light coiling like half-formed wings. The runes of his blood barrier burned brighter, feeding on the air itself.
Voldemort's smile thinned. "So the heir wakes," he murmured. "Animus Tenebris… I haven't seen that spell since—"
Alden didn't let him finish. His wand came down in a single arc, and the entire world flinched.
The torches, the fire, even the lightning ring—all snuffed out in one silent pulse. For a moment, the world went colorless.
Alden stood at the center of it, framed in that void-light—bleeding, trembling, terrifying. The echo of his magic rippled outward like a heartbeat.
Voldemort watched him through the stillness, expression unreadable. Then—slowly, deliberately—he began to clap.
"Oblivion itself," he said, his voice low and pleased. "You understand now. Intent is meaningless. Only action endures."
Alden swayed where he stood, the last of his strength ebbing. His wand trembled, blood dripping from his fingertips. His breath was shallow but steady.
He looked up at Voldemort through the haze, and for the first time, his voice carried no fear, no defiance—only truth.
"You're right," he said softly. "But action means nothing… if it serves no one."
Voldemort tilted his head, curious. "And who does your action serve?"
Alden's lips curved in a faint, tired smile."The ones who still believe I'll come back."
And with that, he raised his wand one last time.
Voldemort's laughter bled into the silence like venom dissipating in water. For a moment, even the Dark Lord himself seemed unsure whether he was still amused or enraged.
"What," he said softly, voice cutting through the smoke, "did you just say?"
Alden's head tilted upward. His eyes—bloodshot, rimmed in ash—still held a faint glimmer. He looked nothing like a boy now. Not a champion, not a student. Just a thing that refused to die.
"I said," he rasped, "watch."
He staggered forward one step, then another. His wand scraped the ground as he lowered it. Harry, bound and half-conscious near the Riddle headstone, tried to call out—but the sound died before it left his throat. Something was changing. The air had gone wrong.
Alden's wand pressed against the earth. His voice broke into the night—steady despite the tremor in his arm.
"Tenebris Lux Ultima."
The world stopped.
It didn't fade to black—it stilled. The air congealed, thick and tangible. Sound was eaten alive. The wind froze mid-motion, the smoke that curled above the broken tombs suspended like strands of glass.
The graveyard became a void. Not empty—full of something vast and waiting. The darkness wasn't an absence. It was substance, a physical mass of shimmering shadow that distorted every outline, folding reality inward.
Voldemort's flames died instantly. The ring of lightning froze, each arc of energy hanging motionless, flickering in eternal suspension. The Death Eaters' hoods whipped once—and then even their breaths stopped, trapped in the same impossible stillness.
At the center stood Alden.
He wasn't glowing. He wasn't aflame. He simply was—a silhouette of resolve in a collapsing world. The dark sphere expanded outward from him, rippling like oil on water. It devoured every ounce of color as it spread, swallowing fire, light, and noise alike.
Harry's heart hammered, but he couldn't even hear it. He watched through the haze as the visible dark bled outward, painting the earth black.
Voldemort's expression twisted from fascination to fury. "What have you done?"
Alden didn't answer. His wand trembled under the weight of the spell, veins glowing faintly under his skin. The magic wasn't pouring out of him—it was being pulled through him, a current too vast for a mortal vessel.
Voldemort lifted his own wand. The air shivered. He didn't use words this time—only intent. Pure, ancient malice condensed into soundless motion. A blast of white fire erupted from his hand and met the advancing darkness.
They collided—
—but there was no explosion.
Light folded in on itself. Time held its breath.Reality buckled.
The earth flattened outward, the trees bent and turned to ash without burning. Stone dissolved into dust, and sound vanished completely. For an instant—less than a heartbeat—the entire graveyard ceased to exist as something separate from the dark.
The Death Eaters were hurled like dolls, their shields disintegrating before they could form. The yew tree tore free from its roots, spiraling into the void like a feather in a hurricane. The Riddle tomb cracked in two.
And at the center, two figures stood locked in stillness.
Voldemort's outline wavered under the sheer gravity of the spell, his cloak shredding, the lower hem evaporating into shadow. He raised his wand again, screaming soundlessly, his face illuminated by his own fury.
Alden was still. Completely.
Blood streamed from his temple, his lip, his arm—yet his stance didn't falter. His wand arm trembled, not from fear, but from strain. His mouth moved once, silently, a word no one would ever hear.
And then—
The darkness imploded.
It didn't explode outward. It folded—like the world taking a deep breath after holding it too long. The silence broke with a soundless pulse. The black light contracted, collapsing back into the single point where Alden stood.
When the echo faded, only ruin remained.
The graveyard was unrecognizable—flattened, scorched, every grave reduced to dust and stone. The air hung still and colorless.
Voldemort staggered back, the edge of his cloak missing, half his form obscured by smoke and ash. For the first time, his face bore not amusement but irritation—perhaps even respect.
At his feet, Alden Dreyse lay motionless.
His body was a ruin of cuts and blood and dust, slumped at the base of the cracked headstone. One arm hung limply over the dirt, fingers still curled around his wand. His chest rose faintly—shallow, but still alive.
Harry's bindings dissolved with the collapse of magic. He fell to his knees, gasping, staring through the fog at his classmate's broken body.
Voldemort's laugh—hoarse now—rolled over the silence. "Impressive," he murmured. "But you've mistaken defiance for strength."
He extended his wand toward Alden's unmoving form, the tip glowing faintly. "You are the first to wound me since Albus Dumbledore himself. Take solace in that, little Dreyse."
He turned toward Harry, smile thin, voice like smoke. "Now—let's finish history."
But Harry wasn't listening. He was staring at Alden, whose body still lay half-buried in the dust, one pale eye barely open, watching through the haze as the Dark Lord turned his back.
For the briefest flicker, that single eye met Harry's.
A silent message.A command. Run.
And then the boy who had challenged a legend went still, his blood soaking into the earth, the remnants of his magic leaving behind a faint halo of shadowed frost where he'd fallen.
The cost of defiance had been paid.